26.2

Happy Marathon Day! Maybe someday I'll be conquering heartbreak hill on the third Monday in April but not this year :)

I am busy trying to conquer my life at the moment. I have been running a bit of a marathon over the past 2-3 weeks trying to stay afloat.

The presentation went really well! I was indeed nervous and some people could tell, others said they couldn't tell. Oh well, I got my point across, I annunciated and I didn't use notes. So for those things I am pretty proud of the whole experience.

My presentation was about a personal success story around my efforts with SEO. S E Say what? Well don't worry, part of the presentation was dedicated to explaining wtf Search Engine Optimization is all about.

I spoke to sheer frustration around a long period of time where results were stagnant against an immense amount of work that I was putting in. And the happy ending? 75% growth in dolla dolla bills y'all. The company's dolla's, unfortunately. 75% pay raise? A girl could dream.

In the aftermath of all things 'company day' two Fridays ago, I officially announced to my superiors and coworkers that I am moving to live with my (wonderful, delightful, handsome, perfect) husband in Denmark at the end of May. (can't wait babe!)

This has been a long time coming and personally I am ecstatic! But there is always a little fear of the unknown. Leaving a career path here and just have to hope it'll all kick back off over there. Keeping the faith... I have some good people  from my company and my parent company lobbying for me so I'm crossing my fingers it all works out with a transfer to corporate in Denmark! :D

Moral of the blog post - running 26.2 miles or moving your entire life across an ocean are both a little daunting, exhilarating and full of potential. If you put in all the hard work, you have to have the confidence that you will not only 'pull it off' but prosper as well.

Good luck runners! 

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01:41:41

Broad Street Run 2009 - 23,093 finishers - holy crap! I was one of them! :D

Ten miles, I did it!  I can't believe it but I actually finished the 10 mile race without stopping to walk or fall too much off a 10 min/mi pace.  I think the more impressive bit worth mentioning is that the last two miles of the race it POURED cats and dogs rain on us!  I did anticipate some rain, and it was just scattered sprinkles throughout the majority of the race, however, I wasn't prepared for the downpour during the two most physically challenging miles!  

Here is a "before" picture.  The "after" picture is literally so bad of me that I really can't share it.

 

So Mike and I finished the race side by side like two mops in a bucket.  The other bad part about the rain was having to SLOWLLLLY walk through these crowds to get food and water after crossing the finish line. We were soaked through and through.  Got back to the minivan and said… let’s bounce!  The Downingtown Running Club had a bunch of stuff to tailgate with, too.  So it was kind of a shame.  It totally would have been my style to eat a burger and relax in the sun.  Unfortunately, shivering in the rain made everything less fun.

But all in all, the race felt really good.  I felt really comfortable with my pace, as slow as it may be.  It managed to keep Mike by my side and he has never run more than five miles.  He certainly kept me going through certain miles that felt longer than others.  He also put up with my weaving traffic of slower runners – I get annoyed easily, we all know this. haha.

We finished in 1 hour 41 minutes, a time I am pretty proud of.  I think I will be just fine to run a half marathon in the near future.  One of my aunt's friends running with us said that once I've done 10 mi then I might as well train for a marathon.  According to her (a very experienced marathon runner) it's making the jump from 3 mi to 7 mi for non-distance runners that is the hardest bit.  I don't know if I am convinced.  She said that I could do a marathon in the fall if I wanted to.  If I wanted to.  Hmm. 

I was thinking if I were to do a marathon, obviously I've toyed with the idea in the past, then I would want to wait until next spring.  I would like to build my stamina as a runner and speed up a bit if at all possible. So my thoughts were to make it a destination marathon like London Marathon or Copenhagen Marathon.

Again, those lofty and ambitious goals of mine.  I still have to tackle the half marathon next.  I had the very quick idea to do the Big Lake Half next Saturday with Carissa in New Hampshire.  I took a look at the race description and thought that "rolling hills" is a good thing when describing a drive in the country but not to run.  I just, to be honest, have incorporated very few hills into my training.  Boston can be pretty flat, especially along The Charles.

I also will have you all know that the race was over as of like 11am yesterday and I still haven't had one single drink! I could really go for a cold beer right now.  I am in the airport which is one of my favorite places to grab a beer but PHL is telling me that despite all this rain my flight is actually ON TIME.  Never (ever) happens in PHL so I'm not sure what is going on. Do they serve beer on puddle jumpers? ;)

Oh wait, just made an announcement.  My plane due to depart in an hour hasn't even left Boston, yet.  On to finding a suitable pint of beer!

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i miss megan focaccia

Well it has been an interesting couple days at work. This post is dedicated to Megan Focaccia (haha). Sooo Megan no longer works with me at Experian QAS and I think I may have took it harsher than she did.  We had a date last night at Sonsie and like 3 espresso martini's (best I've ever found in Boston) and 4 glasses of red later - I'm at work without her and she's sleeping off the dehydration. ;)

Megan and I have, however, registered officially for our first half marathon. Boston's Run to Remember on Sunday, May 24th. Unfortunately you are not invited to watch us (me) sweat and die. Instead, you are permitted to arrange an after party that involves things like margaritas, nachos, cheeseburgers, pizza and funfetti cupcakes. HAHA I solely run to be able to eat whatever it is I want afterwards!!! ;) JK

I leave for Denmark tomorrow woop woop. The weather doesn't look particularly enticing or conducive for outdoor running which I'm a little nervous about but hopefully my loving, supportive fiance will lock me out of the house until I run my miles :)

So I LOVE that I got more than two votes (forced both my coworkers to vote in front of me - RIP Megan) on wedding options!! I somehow wish I could figure out who voted what, haha. It's a pretty even split if I do say so myself... hmmm will let you know what we come up with.

I would like to tell you that I now refer to the wedding as "our hippy wedding" and have decided flipflops will be worn!!! The more and more I think about it the more and more excited I get because this new wedding revamp is SO much more my style. Did I love the idea of a castle wedding? Of course. But is it truly me? Not really.

This is about me and Christian and this wedding is for me and Christian, nobody else. Obviously we want to share our joy and love with everyone but it by no means has to run us flat broke in the end.

Ohhh yay planning our little hippy wedding is so much fun in my head all day. Can hardly wipe the smile off my face to concentrate on real work!!! :) :) :)

...it would also appear in rereading this post I didn't take tylenol this morning but happy pills by mistake? haha

phils to the world series!

WOOPTY WOOP!  The Phils are sick and nasty to put it in Boston terms but in Philly terms the Phils are phantastic!!! I'm SO excited. Almost as excited as I am to have Christian here as of tomorrow night. ;)

I just looked at tickets for games 3-5 home in Philadelphia and well it turns out I will not be able to afford $500 SRO tickets!  If someone has a hook-up definitely let me know but otherwise I will be wearing my Phillie's gear in a bar with huge TVs at home all weekend eatting nothing but artery clogging food!!!  Take that marathon training!

Life is good!

BTW - today is national Boss's Day, who knew?  The card I deemed appropriate to send today, haha.

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zipping

Zipcar is brilliant. I just joined and I am super pumped about it. So let me break down how Zipcar works for all my (crazy) readers that do not live in metropolitan areas.

There are a couple different options for signing up. It depends on how much you drive. I signed up for the "occasional driving" plan. I pay a $50 yearly membership fee and a one time $25 application fee. I can rent cars for about $10/hour or around $70/day but guess what - it includes GAS! Can you believe that?

So I have this credit card looking membership card that unlocks a particular car I reserve by waving it over the driver-side window. Inside there is a credit card for gas so I never pay out of pocket.

Zipcars are parked all over the place. Within a less than half mile distance of my apartment there are roughly 5 different parking lots that all feature at least two Zipcars. I can reserve them for a quick doctor's appointment or for up to 4 days at a time.

Here's a fun one. I rented one for when Christian is here so we can go home to Philadelphia for a few days! :D It will be great to see the family. It will also be fun to do a road trip with Christian. In our almost 7 year relationship we've done very few a road trip. Christian is wondering if we should file for divorce now or? Kidding.

We rented a MINI Cooper. It's green. It's tiny. It's fast (I hope). I've always wanted to drive one. That is another brilliance of Zipcar. You can rent a regular coupe/sedan, pick-up trucks, SUVs, or luxury cars such as BMWs and Vovlos. Do I sound like a Zipcar commercial yet?

Anyway. Christian and I will be home Thurs, Oct 23rd through Sunday Oct 26. Hope to see everyone I miss so much. Maybe we could have a big get together for whoever is around.

T minus 10 days until Christian gets to Boston and I cannot wait!

By the way. Can we talk about average temperatures in Boston while I'm training for a marathon? I'm LITERALLY training during the coldest months possible in Boston. Awesome. Good one, Jillian.

I'm going to Marathon Sports this weekend to blow my paycheck on (unfun) things like proper running shoes, the special socks, the water bottle fanny pack (oh geez) and anything else an educated salesman may be able to convince me is worth more millions of dollars.

There is a science to running shoes, but after mile 3 in my Nike Shox I believe it. They kill after a few miles. So better get the right ones.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to breathe in sub-freezing temperatures? Or know a good way to make my cell phone auto-dial 911 when I collapse on the side of the road?

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